On This Planet Spinning (6/23)
On This Planet Spinning
aka post-apocalypse au, aka painfic
Pairings:[Spoiler (click to open)]Baekxing, Xiuhan, Chansoo (+Chanyeol/Plant)
Genre: post-apocalypse, fantasy, drama, romance
Rating: R
Length: 137K total
Warnings: mature themes, violence/injury, some possibly disturbing imagery, threat of death, poor mental health, very brief mentions of suicidal ideation(?), sad times
Summary: Over a century after meteors destroyed Earth, making the surface uninhabitable, communities are returning from their bunkers and attempting to recolonize the planet. But resources are scarce, tensions are high, and neighbouring communities X-22 and Q-16 are fighting tooth and nail over the Valley, a rare patch of fertile land. Add to that a controversial group of humans with special abilities, and people will start to realize it's not the coming winter that's humanity's biggest obstacle-it's humanity itself. But that doesn't mean hope doesn't exist.
Chapter links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Character cheat sheet for Chapter 5 here
*****
After a week of camping out on his own on the outskirts of X-22 and seeing neither hide nor hair of Luhan in all that time, Yifan seriously starts to worry. And also go out of his mind with boredom. He had expected, when sending Luhan in for recon, to only have to withstand radio silence for a day or two, and then for his friend to return and fill him in on everything he’d learned.
But it’s been over double that, and Yifan is just sitting around on his own waiting for Luhan to come back out of enemy territory, and hell if that isn’t the best way to kill someone of anxiety. He just sits there, baking in the sun, trying to keep himself busy, idly thinking about what Luhan might be doing, if he’s in trouble, if he’s been found out, if he’s been killed. If Yifan’s frankly rash decision to go to X-22 to look for Chanyeol has cost him another close friend, because he trusted Yifan too much. If Luhan dies because of him, Yifan doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
To add to that, Yifan is practically out of supplies for himself. He hadn’t expected to be away for so long. He’d expected to go in, find Chanyeol (or not, but he tries to avoid that direction of thinking), break him out, and get him back home. But now he’s stuck in the hills south of X-22 with his dwindling rations, alone, waiting for word back from Luhan, worrying, and also starving, unable to return home without both of them.
And to top it off, he witnessed an attack on X-22 just the previous day, and although he’d been too busy hiding to really see who was heading the offensive strike, he has a sneaking suspicion it was his own community, which makes him worry for Luhan’s safety even more.
Where the hell is that guy? Why hasn’t he reported back yet? He must know Yifan is worrying about him.
In the end, Yifan realizes he can’t just wait for his food to run out completely and then just waste away. He sits around for half a day contemplating the best strategy from here, then turns his gaze northwest to the little rogue camp there. It’s a tiny, shabby-looking thing-he’s done a bit of recon of his own, creeping up as close as he can while still under cover and checking the place out-and as far as he can tell, it’s just one person living there. Rogues tend to travel alone, by definition of the word. They’re one man (or woman) shows. They fend for themselves.
But Yifan, practically crippled by his own loneliness after less than a week of solitary camping, figures maybe, just maybe, whoever it is living out there could use a companion, too. He figures it’s worth a chance, at least. If the rogue tells him to get lost, Yifan has no trouble following orders. (Well, unless those orders are to not go on a forbidden rescue mission.)
He approaches in the heat of the afternoon, figuring broad daylight is the least threatening way to go. He feels anxious and exposed, in plain view from the community if anyone were to look westwards, but nothing happens as he creeps uncomfortably towards the camp. He stops about twenty meters away, on the other side of a meticulously tended garden, thriving with vegetables Yifan honestly doesn't know all the names of. "Um," he calls, clearing his throat. "Hello? Anyone...home?"
No sound comes out of the little structure that is obviously serving as a house. It's more of a tent, if he thinks about it, thick fabric stretched over what looks like fiberglass poles, although Yifan has never seen a tent in real life prior to this. There was no need for tents underground.
"Hello?" he calls again, increasingly uncertain. There has to be someone living here, right? The garden looks freshly hoed. "I was wondering if-"
The door flap of the tent rustles, and a man-boy?-with tousled black hair steps out, blinking sleepy eyes. "What? Who are you?"
Yifan stares. He hadn't expect someone so...young. "Um. I'm just passing through. Who are you?"
The man stares back. "Zitao," he says eventually. "I live here."
"Oh." Well, Yifan had expected that, of course. "Alone?"
Immediately, Zitao crosses his arms across his chest in a defensive stance. "Why do you need to know that?"
"Huh? Oh, no, I just..." Yifan fumbles. "I'm sorry. I'm just. I've been travelling around this area on my own, and I'm completely out of supplies. I was wondering...well. It looks like you have a lot for one person." He winces. That sounds totally presumptuous, but he doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't want to hem and haw about what he's really after.
Zitao sniffs, jutting out his chin. "I'm not exactly running a charity. And I don't even know you."
"I wouldn't ask you to just give me food for nothing in return!" Yifan says, appalled by the idea. Food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, are hard enough to come by as it is.
“They’re not for sale,” Zitao says resolutely. “This is my land, I grew it here with my own hands.”
“This is your land?” Yifan raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know rogues could own land.”
Zitao looks haughty, cocking his hip. “I traded for it,” he says, nodding towards X-22. “So it’s mine now.”
“Traded what?” Yifan can’t help but ask. What could this kid have had that X-22 wanted enough to trade him fertile land for?
Zitao taps his head with a small quirk of a smile. “Knowledge. Their community didn’t know shit about growing plants. We did. So we traded them our knowledge about growing for enough land for our own garden, and immunity. They agreed not to bother us, we agreed to help them out. It was a fair trade.”
Several questions immediately bounce around Yifan’s skull, but it’s the bitter side of him that says, “Who says they won’t kill you now that they have that information and take the land back?”
Zitao looks surprised, maybe even a little amused. “Because they’re decent humans…?”
Yifan scoffs. “Sure,” he says scornfully. Then, before Zitao can even attempt to defend X-22, he says, “Anyway, who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about? Before, you referred to it as your land. Singular.”
That makes Zitao pause, visibly uncertain. Then he says, “I used to live here with my...sister.”
The hesitation before the word makes Yifan doubt that, but he doesn’t bother pushing. “And?”
“She was killed,” Zitao says simply, too blunt for how his own words make him flinch. Still a raw wound, then. “There was a raid. Not from this community,” he says quickly when Yifan admittedly jumps to blame them. “It wasn’t them. It was someone else. That bastard neighbouring community, I’m guessing.”
Yifan’s jaw clicks shut. Shit. Shit shit shit.
Q-16 had definitely been involved in raids in the past, especially in the first weeks after their second surfacing, when they’d been nothing short of desperate for food. They hadn’t been the first group to resurface after the plague-many smaller groups had already done so months before them, and were already thriving. While Q-16 had been waiting for their first crops to grow, they’d been starving, and willing to do anything to feed their people for another day. Raids, mainly on groups who were pro-paranormal and had more supplies to show for it, but also on anyone they could find, had been the only way they were staying alive day to day. Yifan is...not exactly proud of the things they’d done back then. There hadn’t been a lot of casualties, but even if there had been, he probably would have turned a blind eye to them. Everything was so new and terrifying to him back then. What else was he supposed to do?
Regardless of whether it was Q-16 or some other community, Yifan knows he’s going to have to change his plans on how to appeal to Zitao. Because until now he’d been planning on telling the truth.
As if sensing his sudden mental panic, Zitao looks Yifan up and down and says, “What are you doing out here, anyway? If you’re looking to buy or trade for food, you’re better off talking to the community leader. I can put you in touch with her, if you’re interested.”
“No!” Yifan says, mind spinning for a convincing lie. “I was just. I was wondering if I could...stay with you. For a while.”
Zitao gives him an assessing look, bordering on suspicious. “Why?”
If Zitao is offering to speak with the community leader for Yifan, that must mean they have a positive relationship, that he trusts her. Technically, any ally of X-22 is an enemy of Yifan’s, but he’ll have to make an exception today. But this also means he shouldn’t imply that he’s spying on the community, lest Zitao brings that to the community leader. “I’m just, you know. Passing through. But I’m short on supplies, and could use a place to rest for a while.”
“So why can’t you get it from them?” Zitao asks, gesturing towards the community.
Yifan scrambles for a plausible excuse. “Aren’t they pro-paranormal?” he ventures.
Zitao’s lips twist. “So? As rogues, isn’t the point that we don’t belong to either side?”
“No, of course!” Yifan says. Agreeing is probably the best way to go, here. “Of course. But what I mean is, as a neutral party, I’d rather not get involved in the...the drama. Of a community that’s chosen a side. Choosing sides tends to start fights. I’d rather not be a part of that.”
Zitao gives him another assessing look, but this one looks less like he’s wondering how much heat Yifan is packing. (He’s suddenly glad his blaster is concealed.) “I know what you mean,” Zitao says finally, and Yifan has to force himself not to visibly deflate with relief. “We left our group to get away from fighting, too.”
“Which group?” Yifan asks automatically.
But Zitao shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. As rogues, we belong to no one but ourselves, right?”
“Right,” Yifan agrees automatically.
“So what’s your plan?” Zitao asks, cocking his head to the side. “Come here, eat my food, then leave?”
Yifan gulps. “Of course not. I’ll pull my weight while I’m here. I have capable hands.”
Zitao clucks his tongue. “What if I don’t need your help?”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Yifan relents, because honestly, it looks like this guy is doing more than fine on his own. He’s obviously growing enough food for a small family at least. Tentatively, he says, “But maybe you wouldn’t mind the company?”
Zitao freezes, and Yifan knows he’s struck a chord. He just doesn’t know if that’s a good thing until the man sighs and says, “I wouldn’t mind, I guess.”
Yifan grins.
“But,” Zitao says quickly, cutting him off. “I want to know more about you. I don’t go around letting strangers into my home and giving them my food while knowing nothing about them.”
Yifan winces internally. Shit. Shit. He so did not prepare a backstory for this. “Yeah, I understand,” he says, trying to buy himself some time.
“Where are you headed?” Zitao asks. “I’ve never seen you around these parts before.”
“I’m not from around here,” Yifan says, resigning himself to making up lies as he goes. He really hopes he doesn’t screw this up and give himself away. “I’m...looking for someone.” That’s true enough.
“Looking for who?”
“My family,” is Yifan’s automatic, clichéd response. Guh. Good enough.
Zitao’s eyebrows lift. “Aren’t you going the wrong way, then, if you left your community?”
“No, I...I lost them.”
Zitao looks less than impressed, and Yifan can’t blame him. He is really not at the top of his game right now. He hopes he can blame the sweating on the heat.
“During the first surfacing,” Yifan improvises as he goes. “I lost them. We joined up with another community, and when we all retreated when the plague struck, we got separated into different bunkers. I’ve been looking for them ever since.”
God, that’s terrible. Yifan can’t believe he just said that. How would a kid even get lost like that? You don’t just lose a kid. It’s not like the plague was a sudden, one-day disaster or anything, there was no mad scramble back to their bunkers. Maybe this kid is too young to remember it at all? Was he even born then?
Despite Yifan’s instant regret, Zitao seems to buy it for the time being. “That must be hard,” he says. “How old were you?”
“Four,” Yifan lies. He was definitely older than that when they first surfaced, but he figures he has more reason to be completely lost as to how to find his fictional family if he was younger at the time. Zitao doesn’t need to know how old he is now.
“Your family must miss you. I hope you find them,” Zitao says, looking genuinely sympathetic. Yifan almost wants to laugh.
“Yeah,” he says gruffly instead. “Anyway, I left my old community when things started getting...violent. I didn’t have anywhere to go, though, so I’ve been scouring the area for the family I barely remember. You know? They’re all I have left.”
Zitao nods. “I understand what it’s like to lose your family,” he says softly. “If I could bring mine back, I would.”
Yifan winces. Oh. He hadn’t meant to reopen old wounds. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmurs.
Zitao merely shrugs, even if his expression is broken. “Have you tried searching the land around your old bunker?”
“I don’t remember where it was,” Yifan says, offering an embarrassed shrug while inwardly applauding his forethought in painting himself as a toddler at the time. “I don’t even remember the number. I think maybe it was a Y?”
Zitao frowns. “Never met any Y bunkers before. Did they even build any after X? I thought funding got cut.”
Shit. Yifan has no idea. “I could be wrong,” he says weakly.
Thankfully, Zitao sighs and doesn’t interrogate him further. “I suppose you can stay here before moving on to keep searching,” he says, and Yifan has to refrain from fist pumping. “But I expect you to help me in return, alright?”
“Yeah, of course,” Yifan says, breaking out into a grin. “I really appreciate it.”
Zitao nods slowly. “We rogues have a reputation for being dangerous, which I find funny. We only help those who are pacifists like ourselves. Right?”
Yifan’s grin falters, and he tries to pretend he’s not breaking into a sweat again.
So he probably shouldn’t tell Zitao he’s a soldier, then.
***
Luhan is going out of his mind.
When he had agreed to go into X-22 to do recon, he hadn’t exactly been expecting a warm welcome. After all, everything he heard about their neighbouring community was negative. That they’re greedy, and selfish, and cruel, and heartless. So he hadn’t gone in thinking he would be greeted with open arms.
Except that he had. His welcome had been warm, against all odds. The problem now is literally that the welcome had been too warm; the arms had been too open. Luhan can’t catch a fucking break.
Minseok, the man Luhan first met upon entering the community, had thrown himself into the role of Luhan’s new caretaker with great gusto. He had set up a job for Luhan-Building, just like he had been in Q-16, right alongside Minseok himself for part of the day. He also got Luhan hooked up with a room-his own. He literally has Luhan sleeping in the same room as him, right between Minseok and the wall. Not only that, but he checks in on Luhan periodically throughout the day, “making sure he’s alright,” and not only that, but he has several of his fellow Builders checking in on Luhan as well when he can’t do it himself.
“It’s my job to make sure you’re following rules,” Minseok says with a broad smile, clapping a hand on Luhan’s shoulder. “We’re pretty strict around here, so I don’t want you to stand out or anything. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about you.”
“Yeah,” Luhan always agrees weakly. “Thanks.”
He has to follow the rules to the tee, Minseok says. Up at 6am. Breakfast at 6:30 (they call it breakfast here, which Luhan finds funny every time). Working at 7. Lunch at noon. Then back to work at 12:30. Minseok leaves work at 4 to do god knows what. Luhan keeps working with the Builders until supper at 6. Minseok always makes a point to seek him out, eat with him, talk to him. Sometimes he’s free after supper, sometimes not-if he is, he joins Luhan for the evening, insisting Luhan helps him take care of his baby sister until his parents (they do parents here, rather than primary and secondary caregivers) are free to look after her. If he’s busy or whatever, someone else inevitably shows up to get Luhan to help with this or that, keeping him busy, keeping an eye on him.
As soon as night falls, Minseok shows up, tells Luhan that it’s curfew. They’re to be inside and sleeping by 10:00. Anyone spotted outside after nightfall is in huge trouble, Minseok tells him time and time again. In the dark, he could even be mistaken for an intruder. Their watchmen, Minseok says, are given permission to shoot first and ask questions later. That’s why it’s important that no one goes out at night.
And even if Luhan wanted to, Minseok sleeps between him and the door every night. And Luhan’s not about to climb over him to sneak away, and then try to explain himself when Minseok wakes up.
It’s torture. It’s utter torture. Luhan knows he should have reported back to Yifan ages ago. He knows his friend is probably worried sick over him. But Luhan can’t slip away for even a minute without someone asking him where he’s been. He has eyes on him constantly, all day. He knows they’re just being hospitable, just looking out for him as the new guy, but honestly. He has no privacy whatsoever. There are literally people standing outside the door when he goes to the bathroom. He practically has an entourage.
Yesterday, he couldn’t even leave his post to see what the commotion was when he heard shooting and yelling and fucking explosions. He doesn’t even know who it was, because although Minseok wasn’t with him at the time-he was off doing his other job, apparently, which Luhan had only then realized he knew nothing about-there had been other people holding him back, insisting he keep working, it would be taken care of. Minseok didn’t tell him anything that night, either, when he’d returned to fetch him after supper.
So he can’t leave. He’s still working on figuring out some way to slip out of the community unnoticed, but for the time being, it seems impossible. At least, until the people of X-22 stop seeing him as the new guy.
In the meantime, he continues to try to learn about the inner workings of the community, and, more importantly, the prisoner situation.
“So what’s the military like in this community?” he asks in the evening, once Minseok has shepherded him back to what has become their room. He tries his best to aim for casual. “I feel like I haven’t seen them at all, but you must have one, right?”
“Oh, yeah, we do,” Minseok says, stripping out of his work clothes to drop them on the floor. Luhan clears his throat and looks away. “They’re actually really strong. Really put-together, you know? I considered joining the military, but I don’t have the right kind of discipline for it. Plus, my little sister joined, and someone had to take care of the baby.”
“But your sister doesn’t live with you,” Luhan says, getting sidetracked. “And neither do your parents.”
“Yeah. Kids move out of their parents’ homes when they reach eighteen, usually. To learn independence. My sister moved in with me when she came of age, but then she got herself a partner and moved in with her instead, so now I’m a lonely bachelor again.” He looks at Luhan with a grin, and Luhan realizes he’d been staring at Minseok’s biceps until now. Oops. “Well, until you showed up, and I got a new roommate.”
“O-oh. Yeah.” Luhan manages a smile in response.
“Anyway, they’re still my family, obviously, but they’re no longer my family unit. In fact, technically, you’re in my family unit now.” Minseok shoots him another grin, and Luhan gulps. “So I keep watching Yejoo, because she’s my sister, but I don’t have to live with her. Now, of course, my main priority is you. Family unit comes first, then family, then peers.”
“Right,” Luhan croaks. God, he’s never going to be able to get away from this guy. Also, why the fuck is he so muscular? He literally has the exact same job as Luhan, unless his mysterious “other job” is professional weightlifting.
“Anyway, why were you asking about the military?” Minseok asks, finally pulling on his nightclothes. They’re loose and soft and make him look about ten years younger-Luhan has the exact same ones, community-issued, but he feels like they don’t have the same effect.
“Oh, right, yeah. It was nothing. I was just curious, is all,” Luhan says. “What kind of, like, jobs do they have? I know you mentioned watchmen. Is that part of the military? Or does the military only, you know, attack people?” He pauses, adds, “And take them hostage.”
“It’s all military,” Minseok says. “They all take turns, I think. My sister’s talked about watchman duty before, she hates it. Boring as hell, apparently.”
“Does she ever guard prisoners?” Luhan asks. “That sounds less boring.”
Minseok shrugs, sits down on his bed mat and stretches. “Dunno. She doesn’t talk to me a lot about her job. Mostly just blabbers about her partner.” Minseok rolls his eyes.
Luhan grinds his teeth. Minseok’s always talking to him, all day, but he’s never saying anything important.
“Guard duty can’t be hard, though,” Minseok says suddenly. “There’s just one door. I think I heard the holding cell is underground.”
Luhan lights up. “Really? Where?”
But Minseok shrugs again. “Dunno. I’m a Builder, not a guard.”
Well, fuck. But at least Luhan is getting somewhere.
Finally, Minseok is telling him things worth knowing.
***
Luhan totally buys Minseok’s lie about an underground prisoner cell. Which is ridiculous, because why the hell would they have an underground prisoner cell? Who would do that?
But then again, Luhan buys every ridiculous lie Minseok tells him without question. Which is good, because if he didn’t, it’d be a lot harder to keep an eye on him all day, even when Minseok is busy. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to convince people to watch over his new roommate for him, but for now, it’s amusing to watch him look exasperated at every new rule and restraint Minseok piles on him.
Plus, Luhan’s kind of cute when he’s flustered about being caught in a lie. A mistake Minseok would never, ever make himself, but an endearing look on this amateur.
Now if only he could figure out what the hell Luhan is doing in their community. The guy gets all touchy and closed-up if Minseok tries to pry.
But no matter. They have time. Minseok isn’t letting him out of his sight anytime soon.
And in the meantime, it looks like Minseok has resigned himself to 10 hours of enforced sleep every night.
Well. It could be worse.
***
Baekhyun feels numb.
It's bizarre, because he's in the most pain he's ever felt in his life. His chest is burning with a blinding pain, he can barely breathe, he thinks he has other, smaller injuries littered across his body. But those all feel so far away. Like he's barely connected to his body.
"Baekhyun, sweetheart, I need you to talk to me, okay? I can't get a good diagnosis unless you talk me through what you're feeling," says Liyin, sitting next to his bed, holding his hand. She's a good healer, but Baekhyun knows she won't be able to fix him.
"I alr’dy told you what I'm feeling," Baekhyun says, hating how much of a struggle it is. He has to pick the words one by one out of his brain, string them together like pieces of a puzzle, remember how to form them on his tongue, force them clumsily out of his mouth. One sentence is exhausting. He doesn't want to talk anymore.
"No you didn't, honey. You stopped in the middle. Remember?"
Baekhyun clenches his jaw, feels hot tears of frustration and fear well up again. "When?" he asks, even though he knows he doesn't want to hear the answer.
"Just a minute ago," Liyin says softly, apologetically.
Baekhyun wants to scream, but instead he squeezes his eyes shut, tries to draw steady, shallow breaths. Sobbing hurts too much to let himself get caught up in his emotions. "What did I...say?" he asks, struggling to find the right words. It feels like he's speaking a foreign language, like he hasn't been speaking it for his entire life. He has to grasp at simple vocabulary as it tries to slip away from him.
"You were talking about your memory loss," Liyin reminds him, squeezing his hand.
"I don't remember," Baekhyun whimpers, and he means that he can't recall ever talking about it, but he honestly can't remember so much. There are so many holes in his memory, so many things missing, and the holes multiply every time he pokes at them. He lies in bed all day, trying to reassure himself that he hasn't forgotten everything, and all he does is work himself into panic after panic because it's gone. So much is gone.
He wants to tell Liyin that, because she's waiting for an explanation, she's waiting for him to tell her about these kinds of things, but it's so hard. It's so hard.
"Can you try to explain your symptoms to me, Baekhyun?" Liyin prompts, like she thinks he's forgotten what they're talking about. Again.
"I can't think," Baekhyun says quietly, and it comes out like a slurred whine. "My...brain. Doesn't work right."
"How so?" Liyin asks.
"Nothin’ is...c’nnecting right. I don't. I don't know why." Baekhyun's breath hitches, and it makes his chest ache.
"Your ribs broke in the explosion," Liyin says gently. "One of them pierced a lung, and it collapsed. You also lost a lot of blood, and you started going into shock. Not enough oxygen was reaching your brain. There was some brain damage because of it."
"I can't have...brain dam’ge," Baekhyun hiccups. "My brain is all I have."
"We're trying to fix it, okay? It'll be okay. Can you tell me about your other symptoms?"
He's starting to notice so many. The limb weakness-he can barely move on his own, his grip is pitiful, he feels like he doesn't have proper control of his own body. And then the tremors. The involuntary jerking. The slurred speech. The dizziness, the constant vertigo if he tries to sit up. But the majority of his difficulties are in his head. It’s so hard to concentrate, everything is so muddled and confusing, every thought process is a struggle. He forgets what he’s talking about in the middle of a sentence, he zones out against his will. He skips words, repeats them, uses the wrong one. It takes him too long, sometimes, to process what people are saying, even when it’s simple and straightforward. Sometimes it takes him a few minutes to remember where he is, why he’s there, and why there are two men holding his hands and asking him where he’s feeling the most pain.
Sometimes, Liyin gives him three words to remember, and then asks him the date and his name and her name, and then she asks for the words again, and he can’t even remember her giving him any.
The only thing he can remember, with startling clarity, is Community Leader yelling at him. “I can’t believe you would do this,” he said, when Baekhyun was finally coherent enough to respond. “You could have died. You almost did die. Why would you do something like that?”
“Just wanted t’ help,” Baekhyun said, voice small.
“And you thought putting yourself in danger would help? How does that make sense, Baekhyun?”
“Wasn’ my...fault,” Baekhyun objected softly.
“It was your fault that you were there at all! I’ve told you a hundred times why you’re not allowed on defense. Why wouldn’t you listen to me?” Community Leader’s eyes were wild. “You’re important, Baekhyun, remember? We cannot afford to lose you.”
It hurt then, and it hurts now. Baekhyun knows he deserved the scolding-would have deserved a beating, probably, if he’d been well enough-but it still stings. The reminder that he’d be missed more as an asset to the community than as a person. He knew it all along, but it’s painful to hear it again.
It’s been repeating over and over in his mind since he first realized it. The only thing he’s wanted for is his brain. And now he’s ruined that.
“Baekhyun?”
Baekhyun blinks, gulps, closes his eyes. “‘M sorry. What were we...talking ‘bout?”
Liyin is silent for a few seconds, and then she squeezes Baekhyun’s hand. “You should rest a while. The boys will be in soon, they’re just napping.”
“What boys?” Baekhyun mumbles.
“The paranormal boys. They’re going to try to encourage your ribs to heal.”
“Useless...ribs,” Baekhyun says, then coughs and starts crying because it hurts so much. “Brain,” he manages to grind out.
“Your mind won’t start healing until the rest of your body does. Plus, internal injuries are a genuine worry for now.”
“Whatev’r,” Baekhyun says with a breathy, shallow sigh. “Gonna...sleep.”
“Alright, hon. I’ll be back later to check on you.”
“Kay,” Baekhyun mutters, and then lets his body relax and tries to doze off.
He’s roused sometime later to the feeling of cool, soft hands wrapping around his fingers. He blinks groggily, groans.
“Hello again,” says the quiet man, smiling his quiet smile. It always takes Baekhyun a while to remember his name. Something with a Y. Sometimes he accidentally calls him Liyin. He always laughs at that.
“Ffffff,” Baekhyun says, because he breathed in too deep and now he feels like that hot spiky brick is back.
“That’s right, we’re going to work on that today,” says the man. Yixing, right. Baekhyun is pleased with how quickly he remembered it. “How are those ribs feeling?”
“Really...f’ckin bad,” Baekhyun says. Yixing holds both of his hands gently, and his smile is warm. Baekhyun still wants to punch him for treating him like a baby, but he’s pretty sure it’ll take a few months for him to feel up to it.
“Hopefully they’ll feel a little less bad after this session,” Yixing says, still smiling.
Baekhyun grunts quietly, watches as Yixing makes himself comfortable and the other one-Joon something, Joon...Joon. Baekhyun just calls him Joon in his head. He stands behind Yixing, looking dour as usual. “We don’t have to be holding his hands to do this,” he says grumpily. “We don’t hold the plants’ leaves, do we?”
Something about the word plant sets off alarms in Baekhyun’s head. He’s supposed to remember something about that, he’s sure of it. But when he probes at the thought, it collapses into blankness, and he’s left feeling bereft and empty again.
“Shush, Joon,” Yixing says. Balls. How will Baekhyun ever learn his name if Yixing doesn’t say the full thing? “The plants aren’t injured humans.”
Joon scoffs. “Well, I’m not holding anyone’s hands.”
“You don’t have to. Both of mine and Baekhyun’s are already occupied,” Yixing quips. They seem so comfortable together. Baekhyun wants that, too, all of a sudden. To talk to someone he’s comfortable with. He’s only seen these two and Liyin and Community Leader in the past...well, since the explosion. At least, he’s pretty sure that’s all. Has his mother come by?
“Here we go, Baekhyun,” Yixing says, turning his warm gaze back to him. “Keep breathing through it, alright? Hopefully this’ll help.”
“Mmn,” Baekhyun says vaguely, closing his eyes. At first, he always watched the paranormal pair as they worked their voodoo magic on him, but he’s grown bored with it now. They don’t really look like much. Joonmyun-Baekhyun remembers his name!-tends to look concentrated to the point of constipation, all furrowed eyebrows and set jaws, while Yixing always looks completely zen, holding Baekhyun’s hands and sometimes humming. Baekhyun always just feels very warm, like his body is buzzing, filling up with liquid fire that just edges on painful. It feels overwhelming sometimes, and he’s cried more than once, but it doesn’t hurt as much as everything else does, so he doesn’t complain.
He doesn’t cry this time. Joonmyun and Yixing do their thing, and Baekhyun’s chest burns in a very different way than it usually does. He struggles to breathe, but he forces himself to inhale, hold it, exhale. It goes on for a few minutes, building up very very slowly, to the point that Baekhyun doesn’t think he can take it for another second. And then the burning and the fullness lessen, then slip away. He opens his eyes.
The paranormals look utterly wrung out. Joonmyun clutches the back of Yixing’s chair, swaying on his feet, and Yixing’s face is unhealthily pale. He smiles anyway, squeezes Baekhyun’s good hand, the one without his fingers splinted together. “How are you feeling?”
Baekhyun breathes in experimentally, and although it’s still painful, and the pressure is still there, he thinks there’s some improvement. The skin over his ribs feels less tight and itchy and inflamed, at the very least. “Bit better,” he mumbles.
“Good,” Yixing says, his smile growing even as his eyes flutter with exhaustion. “That’s really great, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun takes another slow, painstaking breath. “Will my brain ever…” There’s a long pause, and he struggles to find the right words, to finish his thought. “Heal? Will I r’member?”
“You’re very concerned with remembering things,” Yixing says, instead of answering.
“‘S all ‘m good for,” Baekhyun admits, wincing. “Not used to...forgetting.”
“Well that’s cryptic,” Joonmyun mutters.
“Your dad is always asking us about your memory, too,” Yixing sighs.
Baekhyun’s eyes snap open. He hadn’t even noticed them closing. “How’d you...know?”
“What?” Yixing blinks at him.
“That he’s...my dad.”
Yixing furrows his eyebrows at him. “The community leader? Isn’t it...just a fact?”
Baekhyun shakes his head slowly, even though it hurts to. “‘S a secr’t. Big...secr’t.”
“Why is the fact that you’re the leader’s son a secret?” Yixing just looks more confused than ever.
Baekhyun swallows thickly. He hadn’t realized until now how thirsty he is. “‘Cause I’m...import...import...nt.”
Yixing shakes his head, like he’s given up on understanding. Baekhyun wonders if he’s even using the right words. “He looks at you like a father,” he says eventually. “I didn’t know he was trying to hide it.”
Baekhyun hums slightly, bitterly amused. “Just wants me alive ‘cause I’m...import’nt.”
Yixing makes a tsking sound. “He was worried about you. Is worried about you.”
Baekhyun manages a small scoff, then regrets it. “Sure. ‘Cause I’m-”
“Important, yeah. So you said,” says Joonmyun, sounding unimpressed. “Just leave him, Xing, he’s not gonna listen to you.”
Yixing sighs. Baekhyun closes his eyes again.
“Let’s go,” Joonmyun says. “You need to rest.”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll stay with him a while longer.”
“Xing, come on. It’s not like he’s gonna be grateful for your company.”
Baekhyun would agree, but he honestly just feels so apathetic about everything right now. He stays silent, pretends to be sleeping.
“It’s fine, Joon. He shouldn’t be alone that much.”
“Whatever,” Joonmyun mutters, and Baekhyun hears him sit down across the room.
“Liyin gave me this book earlier,” Yixing says softly, obviously directed at Baekhyun. “Mind if I read it out loud to you?”
Baekhyun mumbles vaguely, not really saying anything at all. Lets Yixing interpret it however he wants.
“All of the books in our bunker were in such bad condition by the time we resurfaced,” Yixing says, and his voice is so warm. Baekhyun won’t admit it aloud, but he could listen to it for a long, long time. “This one’s still so nice. It’s called ‘Long Live the Night.’ Have you read it?”
Baekhyun shakes his head minutely.
“Good. We can read it together.”
Baekhyun dozes off in the middle of chapter two, wondering if he’ll even remember any of this when he wakes up.
*****
NEXT>>
A/N: So now that we're two weeks in, tell me! Is 3 weekly updates good? Too many? Not enough? (Even if it's not enough, I won't post more often lmao.) Would you rather I went back to twice weekly? Let me know~~ Also, shoutout to the 6-7 people who consistently comment on every chapter. I LOVE YALL.
Find me on twitter, tumblr, and ask.fm!
See a handy-dandy character profile cheat sheet for this chapter here!
aka post-apocalypse au, aka painfic
Pairings:[Spoiler (click to open)]Baekxing, Xiuhan, Chansoo (+Chanyeol/Plant)
Genre: post-apocalypse, fantasy, drama, romance
Rating: R
Length: 137K total
Warnings: mature themes, violence/injury, some possibly disturbing imagery, threat of death, poor mental health, very brief mentions of suicidal ideation(?), sad times
Summary: Over a century after meteors destroyed Earth, making the surface uninhabitable, communities are returning from their bunkers and attempting to recolonize the planet. But resources are scarce, tensions are high, and neighbouring communities X-22 and Q-16 are fighting tooth and nail over the Valley, a rare patch of fertile land. Add to that a controversial group of humans with special abilities, and people will start to realize it's not the coming winter that's humanity's biggest obstacle-it's humanity itself. But that doesn't mean hope doesn't exist.
Chapter links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Character cheat sheet for Chapter 5 here
*****
After a week of camping out on his own on the outskirts of X-22 and seeing neither hide nor hair of Luhan in all that time, Yifan seriously starts to worry. And also go out of his mind with boredom. He had expected, when sending Luhan in for recon, to only have to withstand radio silence for a day or two, and then for his friend to return and fill him in on everything he’d learned.
But it’s been over double that, and Yifan is just sitting around on his own waiting for Luhan to come back out of enemy territory, and hell if that isn’t the best way to kill someone of anxiety. He just sits there, baking in the sun, trying to keep himself busy, idly thinking about what Luhan might be doing, if he’s in trouble, if he’s been found out, if he’s been killed. If Yifan’s frankly rash decision to go to X-22 to look for Chanyeol has cost him another close friend, because he trusted Yifan too much. If Luhan dies because of him, Yifan doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
To add to that, Yifan is practically out of supplies for himself. He hadn’t expected to be away for so long. He’d expected to go in, find Chanyeol (or not, but he tries to avoid that direction of thinking), break him out, and get him back home. But now he’s stuck in the hills south of X-22 with his dwindling rations, alone, waiting for word back from Luhan, worrying, and also starving, unable to return home without both of them.
And to top it off, he witnessed an attack on X-22 just the previous day, and although he’d been too busy hiding to really see who was heading the offensive strike, he has a sneaking suspicion it was his own community, which makes him worry for Luhan’s safety even more.
Where the hell is that guy? Why hasn’t he reported back yet? He must know Yifan is worrying about him.
In the end, Yifan realizes he can’t just wait for his food to run out completely and then just waste away. He sits around for half a day contemplating the best strategy from here, then turns his gaze northwest to the little rogue camp there. It’s a tiny, shabby-looking thing-he’s done a bit of recon of his own, creeping up as close as he can while still under cover and checking the place out-and as far as he can tell, it’s just one person living there. Rogues tend to travel alone, by definition of the word. They’re one man (or woman) shows. They fend for themselves.
But Yifan, practically crippled by his own loneliness after less than a week of solitary camping, figures maybe, just maybe, whoever it is living out there could use a companion, too. He figures it’s worth a chance, at least. If the rogue tells him to get lost, Yifan has no trouble following orders. (Well, unless those orders are to not go on a forbidden rescue mission.)
He approaches in the heat of the afternoon, figuring broad daylight is the least threatening way to go. He feels anxious and exposed, in plain view from the community if anyone were to look westwards, but nothing happens as he creeps uncomfortably towards the camp. He stops about twenty meters away, on the other side of a meticulously tended garden, thriving with vegetables Yifan honestly doesn't know all the names of. "Um," he calls, clearing his throat. "Hello? Anyone...home?"
No sound comes out of the little structure that is obviously serving as a house. It's more of a tent, if he thinks about it, thick fabric stretched over what looks like fiberglass poles, although Yifan has never seen a tent in real life prior to this. There was no need for tents underground.
"Hello?" he calls again, increasingly uncertain. There has to be someone living here, right? The garden looks freshly hoed. "I was wondering if-"
The door flap of the tent rustles, and a man-boy?-with tousled black hair steps out, blinking sleepy eyes. "What? Who are you?"
Yifan stares. He hadn't expect someone so...young. "Um. I'm just passing through. Who are you?"
The man stares back. "Zitao," he says eventually. "I live here."
"Oh." Well, Yifan had expected that, of course. "Alone?"
Immediately, Zitao crosses his arms across his chest in a defensive stance. "Why do you need to know that?"
"Huh? Oh, no, I just..." Yifan fumbles. "I'm sorry. I'm just. I've been travelling around this area on my own, and I'm completely out of supplies. I was wondering...well. It looks like you have a lot for one person." He winces. That sounds totally presumptuous, but he doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't want to hem and haw about what he's really after.
Zitao sniffs, jutting out his chin. "I'm not exactly running a charity. And I don't even know you."
"I wouldn't ask you to just give me food for nothing in return!" Yifan says, appalled by the idea. Food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, are hard enough to come by as it is.
“They’re not for sale,” Zitao says resolutely. “This is my land, I grew it here with my own hands.”
“This is your land?” Yifan raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know rogues could own land.”
Zitao looks haughty, cocking his hip. “I traded for it,” he says, nodding towards X-22. “So it’s mine now.”
“Traded what?” Yifan can’t help but ask. What could this kid have had that X-22 wanted enough to trade him fertile land for?
Zitao taps his head with a small quirk of a smile. “Knowledge. Their community didn’t know shit about growing plants. We did. So we traded them our knowledge about growing for enough land for our own garden, and immunity. They agreed not to bother us, we agreed to help them out. It was a fair trade.”
Several questions immediately bounce around Yifan’s skull, but it’s the bitter side of him that says, “Who says they won’t kill you now that they have that information and take the land back?”
Zitao looks surprised, maybe even a little amused. “Because they’re decent humans…?”
Yifan scoffs. “Sure,” he says scornfully. Then, before Zitao can even attempt to defend X-22, he says, “Anyway, who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about? Before, you referred to it as your land. Singular.”
That makes Zitao pause, visibly uncertain. Then he says, “I used to live here with my...sister.”
The hesitation before the word makes Yifan doubt that, but he doesn’t bother pushing. “And?”
“She was killed,” Zitao says simply, too blunt for how his own words make him flinch. Still a raw wound, then. “There was a raid. Not from this community,” he says quickly when Yifan admittedly jumps to blame them. “It wasn’t them. It was someone else. That bastard neighbouring community, I’m guessing.”
Yifan’s jaw clicks shut. Shit. Shit shit shit.
Q-16 had definitely been involved in raids in the past, especially in the first weeks after their second surfacing, when they’d been nothing short of desperate for food. They hadn’t been the first group to resurface after the plague-many smaller groups had already done so months before them, and were already thriving. While Q-16 had been waiting for their first crops to grow, they’d been starving, and willing to do anything to feed their people for another day. Raids, mainly on groups who were pro-paranormal and had more supplies to show for it, but also on anyone they could find, had been the only way they were staying alive day to day. Yifan is...not exactly proud of the things they’d done back then. There hadn’t been a lot of casualties, but even if there had been, he probably would have turned a blind eye to them. Everything was so new and terrifying to him back then. What else was he supposed to do?
Regardless of whether it was Q-16 or some other community, Yifan knows he’s going to have to change his plans on how to appeal to Zitao. Because until now he’d been planning on telling the truth.
As if sensing his sudden mental panic, Zitao looks Yifan up and down and says, “What are you doing out here, anyway? If you’re looking to buy or trade for food, you’re better off talking to the community leader. I can put you in touch with her, if you’re interested.”
“No!” Yifan says, mind spinning for a convincing lie. “I was just. I was wondering if I could...stay with you. For a while.”
Zitao gives him an assessing look, bordering on suspicious. “Why?”
If Zitao is offering to speak with the community leader for Yifan, that must mean they have a positive relationship, that he trusts her. Technically, any ally of X-22 is an enemy of Yifan’s, but he’ll have to make an exception today. But this also means he shouldn’t imply that he’s spying on the community, lest Zitao brings that to the community leader. “I’m just, you know. Passing through. But I’m short on supplies, and could use a place to rest for a while.”
“So why can’t you get it from them?” Zitao asks, gesturing towards the community.
Yifan scrambles for a plausible excuse. “Aren’t they pro-paranormal?” he ventures.
Zitao’s lips twist. “So? As rogues, isn’t the point that we don’t belong to either side?”
“No, of course!” Yifan says. Agreeing is probably the best way to go, here. “Of course. But what I mean is, as a neutral party, I’d rather not get involved in the...the drama. Of a community that’s chosen a side. Choosing sides tends to start fights. I’d rather not be a part of that.”
Zitao gives him another assessing look, but this one looks less like he’s wondering how much heat Yifan is packing. (He’s suddenly glad his blaster is concealed.) “I know what you mean,” Zitao says finally, and Yifan has to force himself not to visibly deflate with relief. “We left our group to get away from fighting, too.”
“Which group?” Yifan asks automatically.
But Zitao shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. As rogues, we belong to no one but ourselves, right?”
“Right,” Yifan agrees automatically.
“So what’s your plan?” Zitao asks, cocking his head to the side. “Come here, eat my food, then leave?”
Yifan gulps. “Of course not. I’ll pull my weight while I’m here. I have capable hands.”
Zitao clucks his tongue. “What if I don’t need your help?”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Yifan relents, because honestly, it looks like this guy is doing more than fine on his own. He’s obviously growing enough food for a small family at least. Tentatively, he says, “But maybe you wouldn’t mind the company?”
Zitao freezes, and Yifan knows he’s struck a chord. He just doesn’t know if that’s a good thing until the man sighs and says, “I wouldn’t mind, I guess.”
Yifan grins.
“But,” Zitao says quickly, cutting him off. “I want to know more about you. I don’t go around letting strangers into my home and giving them my food while knowing nothing about them.”
Yifan winces internally. Shit. Shit. He so did not prepare a backstory for this. “Yeah, I understand,” he says, trying to buy himself some time.
“Where are you headed?” Zitao asks. “I’ve never seen you around these parts before.”
“I’m not from around here,” Yifan says, resigning himself to making up lies as he goes. He really hopes he doesn’t screw this up and give himself away. “I’m...looking for someone.” That’s true enough.
“Looking for who?”
“My family,” is Yifan’s automatic, clichéd response. Guh. Good enough.
Zitao’s eyebrows lift. “Aren’t you going the wrong way, then, if you left your community?”
“No, I...I lost them.”
Zitao looks less than impressed, and Yifan can’t blame him. He is really not at the top of his game right now. He hopes he can blame the sweating on the heat.
“During the first surfacing,” Yifan improvises as he goes. “I lost them. We joined up with another community, and when we all retreated when the plague struck, we got separated into different bunkers. I’ve been looking for them ever since.”
God, that’s terrible. Yifan can’t believe he just said that. How would a kid even get lost like that? You don’t just lose a kid. It’s not like the plague was a sudden, one-day disaster or anything, there was no mad scramble back to their bunkers. Maybe this kid is too young to remember it at all? Was he even born then?
Despite Yifan’s instant regret, Zitao seems to buy it for the time being. “That must be hard,” he says. “How old were you?”
“Four,” Yifan lies. He was definitely older than that when they first surfaced, but he figures he has more reason to be completely lost as to how to find his fictional family if he was younger at the time. Zitao doesn’t need to know how old he is now.
“Your family must miss you. I hope you find them,” Zitao says, looking genuinely sympathetic. Yifan almost wants to laugh.
“Yeah,” he says gruffly instead. “Anyway, I left my old community when things started getting...violent. I didn’t have anywhere to go, though, so I’ve been scouring the area for the family I barely remember. You know? They’re all I have left.”
Zitao nods. “I understand what it’s like to lose your family,” he says softly. “If I could bring mine back, I would.”
Yifan winces. Oh. He hadn’t meant to reopen old wounds. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmurs.
Zitao merely shrugs, even if his expression is broken. “Have you tried searching the land around your old bunker?”
“I don’t remember where it was,” Yifan says, offering an embarrassed shrug while inwardly applauding his forethought in painting himself as a toddler at the time. “I don’t even remember the number. I think maybe it was a Y?”
Zitao frowns. “Never met any Y bunkers before. Did they even build any after X? I thought funding got cut.”
Shit. Yifan has no idea. “I could be wrong,” he says weakly.
Thankfully, Zitao sighs and doesn’t interrogate him further. “I suppose you can stay here before moving on to keep searching,” he says, and Yifan has to refrain from fist pumping. “But I expect you to help me in return, alright?”
“Yeah, of course,” Yifan says, breaking out into a grin. “I really appreciate it.”
Zitao nods slowly. “We rogues have a reputation for being dangerous, which I find funny. We only help those who are pacifists like ourselves. Right?”
Yifan’s grin falters, and he tries to pretend he’s not breaking into a sweat again.
So he probably shouldn’t tell Zitao he’s a soldier, then.
***
Luhan is going out of his mind.
When he had agreed to go into X-22 to do recon, he hadn’t exactly been expecting a warm welcome. After all, everything he heard about their neighbouring community was negative. That they’re greedy, and selfish, and cruel, and heartless. So he hadn’t gone in thinking he would be greeted with open arms.
Except that he had. His welcome had been warm, against all odds. The problem now is literally that the welcome had been too warm; the arms had been too open. Luhan can’t catch a fucking break.
Minseok, the man Luhan first met upon entering the community, had thrown himself into the role of Luhan’s new caretaker with great gusto. He had set up a job for Luhan-Building, just like he had been in Q-16, right alongside Minseok himself for part of the day. He also got Luhan hooked up with a room-his own. He literally has Luhan sleeping in the same room as him, right between Minseok and the wall. Not only that, but he checks in on Luhan periodically throughout the day, “making sure he’s alright,” and not only that, but he has several of his fellow Builders checking in on Luhan as well when he can’t do it himself.
“It’s my job to make sure you’re following rules,” Minseok says with a broad smile, clapping a hand on Luhan’s shoulder. “We’re pretty strict around here, so I don’t want you to stand out or anything. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about you.”
“Yeah,” Luhan always agrees weakly. “Thanks.”
He has to follow the rules to the tee, Minseok says. Up at 6am. Breakfast at 6:30 (they call it breakfast here, which Luhan finds funny every time). Working at 7. Lunch at noon. Then back to work at 12:30. Minseok leaves work at 4 to do god knows what. Luhan keeps working with the Builders until supper at 6. Minseok always makes a point to seek him out, eat with him, talk to him. Sometimes he’s free after supper, sometimes not-if he is, he joins Luhan for the evening, insisting Luhan helps him take care of his baby sister until his parents (they do parents here, rather than primary and secondary caregivers) are free to look after her. If he’s busy or whatever, someone else inevitably shows up to get Luhan to help with this or that, keeping him busy, keeping an eye on him.
As soon as night falls, Minseok shows up, tells Luhan that it’s curfew. They’re to be inside and sleeping by 10:00. Anyone spotted outside after nightfall is in huge trouble, Minseok tells him time and time again. In the dark, he could even be mistaken for an intruder. Their watchmen, Minseok says, are given permission to shoot first and ask questions later. That’s why it’s important that no one goes out at night.
And even if Luhan wanted to, Minseok sleeps between him and the door every night. And Luhan’s not about to climb over him to sneak away, and then try to explain himself when Minseok wakes up.
It’s torture. It’s utter torture. Luhan knows he should have reported back to Yifan ages ago. He knows his friend is probably worried sick over him. But Luhan can’t slip away for even a minute without someone asking him where he’s been. He has eyes on him constantly, all day. He knows they’re just being hospitable, just looking out for him as the new guy, but honestly. He has no privacy whatsoever. There are literally people standing outside the door when he goes to the bathroom. He practically has an entourage.
Yesterday, he couldn’t even leave his post to see what the commotion was when he heard shooting and yelling and fucking explosions. He doesn’t even know who it was, because although Minseok wasn’t with him at the time-he was off doing his other job, apparently, which Luhan had only then realized he knew nothing about-there had been other people holding him back, insisting he keep working, it would be taken care of. Minseok didn’t tell him anything that night, either, when he’d returned to fetch him after supper.
So he can’t leave. He’s still working on figuring out some way to slip out of the community unnoticed, but for the time being, it seems impossible. At least, until the people of X-22 stop seeing him as the new guy.
In the meantime, he continues to try to learn about the inner workings of the community, and, more importantly, the prisoner situation.
“So what’s the military like in this community?” he asks in the evening, once Minseok has shepherded him back to what has become their room. He tries his best to aim for casual. “I feel like I haven’t seen them at all, but you must have one, right?”
“Oh, yeah, we do,” Minseok says, stripping out of his work clothes to drop them on the floor. Luhan clears his throat and looks away. “They’re actually really strong. Really put-together, you know? I considered joining the military, but I don’t have the right kind of discipline for it. Plus, my little sister joined, and someone had to take care of the baby.”
“But your sister doesn’t live with you,” Luhan says, getting sidetracked. “And neither do your parents.”
“Yeah. Kids move out of their parents’ homes when they reach eighteen, usually. To learn independence. My sister moved in with me when she came of age, but then she got herself a partner and moved in with her instead, so now I’m a lonely bachelor again.” He looks at Luhan with a grin, and Luhan realizes he’d been staring at Minseok’s biceps until now. Oops. “Well, until you showed up, and I got a new roommate.”
“O-oh. Yeah.” Luhan manages a smile in response.
“Anyway, they’re still my family, obviously, but they’re no longer my family unit. In fact, technically, you’re in my family unit now.” Minseok shoots him another grin, and Luhan gulps. “So I keep watching Yejoo, because she’s my sister, but I don’t have to live with her. Now, of course, my main priority is you. Family unit comes first, then family, then peers.”
“Right,” Luhan croaks. God, he’s never going to be able to get away from this guy. Also, why the fuck is he so muscular? He literally has the exact same job as Luhan, unless his mysterious “other job” is professional weightlifting.
“Anyway, why were you asking about the military?” Minseok asks, finally pulling on his nightclothes. They’re loose and soft and make him look about ten years younger-Luhan has the exact same ones, community-issued, but he feels like they don’t have the same effect.
“Oh, right, yeah. It was nothing. I was just curious, is all,” Luhan says. “What kind of, like, jobs do they have? I know you mentioned watchmen. Is that part of the military? Or does the military only, you know, attack people?” He pauses, adds, “And take them hostage.”
“It’s all military,” Minseok says. “They all take turns, I think. My sister’s talked about watchman duty before, she hates it. Boring as hell, apparently.”
“Does she ever guard prisoners?” Luhan asks. “That sounds less boring.”
Minseok shrugs, sits down on his bed mat and stretches. “Dunno. She doesn’t talk to me a lot about her job. Mostly just blabbers about her partner.” Minseok rolls his eyes.
Luhan grinds his teeth. Minseok’s always talking to him, all day, but he’s never saying anything important.
“Guard duty can’t be hard, though,” Minseok says suddenly. “There’s just one door. I think I heard the holding cell is underground.”
Luhan lights up. “Really? Where?”
But Minseok shrugs again. “Dunno. I’m a Builder, not a guard.”
Well, fuck. But at least Luhan is getting somewhere.
Finally, Minseok is telling him things worth knowing.
***
Luhan totally buys Minseok’s lie about an underground prisoner cell. Which is ridiculous, because why the hell would they have an underground prisoner cell? Who would do that?
But then again, Luhan buys every ridiculous lie Minseok tells him without question. Which is good, because if he didn’t, it’d be a lot harder to keep an eye on him all day, even when Minseok is busy. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to convince people to watch over his new roommate for him, but for now, it’s amusing to watch him look exasperated at every new rule and restraint Minseok piles on him.
Plus, Luhan’s kind of cute when he’s flustered about being caught in a lie. A mistake Minseok would never, ever make himself, but an endearing look on this amateur.
Now if only he could figure out what the hell Luhan is doing in their community. The guy gets all touchy and closed-up if Minseok tries to pry.
But no matter. They have time. Minseok isn’t letting him out of his sight anytime soon.
And in the meantime, it looks like Minseok has resigned himself to 10 hours of enforced sleep every night.
Well. It could be worse.
***
Baekhyun feels numb.
It's bizarre, because he's in the most pain he's ever felt in his life. His chest is burning with a blinding pain, he can barely breathe, he thinks he has other, smaller injuries littered across his body. But those all feel so far away. Like he's barely connected to his body.
"Baekhyun, sweetheart, I need you to talk to me, okay? I can't get a good diagnosis unless you talk me through what you're feeling," says Liyin, sitting next to his bed, holding his hand. She's a good healer, but Baekhyun knows she won't be able to fix him.
"I alr’dy told you what I'm feeling," Baekhyun says, hating how much of a struggle it is. He has to pick the words one by one out of his brain, string them together like pieces of a puzzle, remember how to form them on his tongue, force them clumsily out of his mouth. One sentence is exhausting. He doesn't want to talk anymore.
"No you didn't, honey. You stopped in the middle. Remember?"
Baekhyun clenches his jaw, feels hot tears of frustration and fear well up again. "When?" he asks, even though he knows he doesn't want to hear the answer.
"Just a minute ago," Liyin says softly, apologetically.
Baekhyun wants to scream, but instead he squeezes his eyes shut, tries to draw steady, shallow breaths. Sobbing hurts too much to let himself get caught up in his emotions. "What did I...say?" he asks, struggling to find the right words. It feels like he's speaking a foreign language, like he hasn't been speaking it for his entire life. He has to grasp at simple vocabulary as it tries to slip away from him.
"You were talking about your memory loss," Liyin reminds him, squeezing his hand.
"I don't remember," Baekhyun whimpers, and he means that he can't recall ever talking about it, but he honestly can't remember so much. There are so many holes in his memory, so many things missing, and the holes multiply every time he pokes at them. He lies in bed all day, trying to reassure himself that he hasn't forgotten everything, and all he does is work himself into panic after panic because it's gone. So much is gone.
He wants to tell Liyin that, because she's waiting for an explanation, she's waiting for him to tell her about these kinds of things, but it's so hard. It's so hard.
"Can you try to explain your symptoms to me, Baekhyun?" Liyin prompts, like she thinks he's forgotten what they're talking about. Again.
"I can't think," Baekhyun says quietly, and it comes out like a slurred whine. "My...brain. Doesn't work right."
"How so?" Liyin asks.
"Nothin’ is...c’nnecting right. I don't. I don't know why." Baekhyun's breath hitches, and it makes his chest ache.
"Your ribs broke in the explosion," Liyin says gently. "One of them pierced a lung, and it collapsed. You also lost a lot of blood, and you started going into shock. Not enough oxygen was reaching your brain. There was some brain damage because of it."
"I can't have...brain dam’ge," Baekhyun hiccups. "My brain is all I have."
"We're trying to fix it, okay? It'll be okay. Can you tell me about your other symptoms?"
He's starting to notice so many. The limb weakness-he can barely move on his own, his grip is pitiful, he feels like he doesn't have proper control of his own body. And then the tremors. The involuntary jerking. The slurred speech. The dizziness, the constant vertigo if he tries to sit up. But the majority of his difficulties are in his head. It’s so hard to concentrate, everything is so muddled and confusing, every thought process is a struggle. He forgets what he’s talking about in the middle of a sentence, he zones out against his will. He skips words, repeats them, uses the wrong one. It takes him too long, sometimes, to process what people are saying, even when it’s simple and straightforward. Sometimes it takes him a few minutes to remember where he is, why he’s there, and why there are two men holding his hands and asking him where he’s feeling the most pain.
Sometimes, Liyin gives him three words to remember, and then asks him the date and his name and her name, and then she asks for the words again, and he can’t even remember her giving him any.
The only thing he can remember, with startling clarity, is Community Leader yelling at him. “I can’t believe you would do this,” he said, when Baekhyun was finally coherent enough to respond. “You could have died. You almost did die. Why would you do something like that?”
“Just wanted t’ help,” Baekhyun said, voice small.
“And you thought putting yourself in danger would help? How does that make sense, Baekhyun?”
“Wasn’ my...fault,” Baekhyun objected softly.
“It was your fault that you were there at all! I’ve told you a hundred times why you’re not allowed on defense. Why wouldn’t you listen to me?” Community Leader’s eyes were wild. “You’re important, Baekhyun, remember? We cannot afford to lose you.”
It hurt then, and it hurts now. Baekhyun knows he deserved the scolding-would have deserved a beating, probably, if he’d been well enough-but it still stings. The reminder that he’d be missed more as an asset to the community than as a person. He knew it all along, but it’s painful to hear it again.
It’s been repeating over and over in his mind since he first realized it. The only thing he’s wanted for is his brain. And now he’s ruined that.
“Baekhyun?”
Baekhyun blinks, gulps, closes his eyes. “‘M sorry. What were we...talking ‘bout?”
Liyin is silent for a few seconds, and then she squeezes Baekhyun’s hand. “You should rest a while. The boys will be in soon, they’re just napping.”
“What boys?” Baekhyun mumbles.
“The paranormal boys. They’re going to try to encourage your ribs to heal.”
“Useless...ribs,” Baekhyun says, then coughs and starts crying because it hurts so much. “Brain,” he manages to grind out.
“Your mind won’t start healing until the rest of your body does. Plus, internal injuries are a genuine worry for now.”
“Whatev’r,” Baekhyun says with a breathy, shallow sigh. “Gonna...sleep.”
“Alright, hon. I’ll be back later to check on you.”
“Kay,” Baekhyun mutters, and then lets his body relax and tries to doze off.
He’s roused sometime later to the feeling of cool, soft hands wrapping around his fingers. He blinks groggily, groans.
“Hello again,” says the quiet man, smiling his quiet smile. It always takes Baekhyun a while to remember his name. Something with a Y. Sometimes he accidentally calls him Liyin. He always laughs at that.
“Ffffff,” Baekhyun says, because he breathed in too deep and now he feels like that hot spiky brick is back.
“That’s right, we’re going to work on that today,” says the man. Yixing, right. Baekhyun is pleased with how quickly he remembered it. “How are those ribs feeling?”
“Really...f’ckin bad,” Baekhyun says. Yixing holds both of his hands gently, and his smile is warm. Baekhyun still wants to punch him for treating him like a baby, but he’s pretty sure it’ll take a few months for him to feel up to it.
“Hopefully they’ll feel a little less bad after this session,” Yixing says, still smiling.
Baekhyun grunts quietly, watches as Yixing makes himself comfortable and the other one-Joon something, Joon...Joon. Baekhyun just calls him Joon in his head. He stands behind Yixing, looking dour as usual. “We don’t have to be holding his hands to do this,” he says grumpily. “We don’t hold the plants’ leaves, do we?”
Something about the word plant sets off alarms in Baekhyun’s head. He’s supposed to remember something about that, he’s sure of it. But when he probes at the thought, it collapses into blankness, and he’s left feeling bereft and empty again.
“Shush, Joon,” Yixing says. Balls. How will Baekhyun ever learn his name if Yixing doesn’t say the full thing? “The plants aren’t injured humans.”
Joon scoffs. “Well, I’m not holding anyone’s hands.”
“You don’t have to. Both of mine and Baekhyun’s are already occupied,” Yixing quips. They seem so comfortable together. Baekhyun wants that, too, all of a sudden. To talk to someone he’s comfortable with. He’s only seen these two and Liyin and Community Leader in the past...well, since the explosion. At least, he’s pretty sure that’s all. Has his mother come by?
“Here we go, Baekhyun,” Yixing says, turning his warm gaze back to him. “Keep breathing through it, alright? Hopefully this’ll help.”
“Mmn,” Baekhyun says vaguely, closing his eyes. At first, he always watched the paranormal pair as they worked their voodoo magic on him, but he’s grown bored with it now. They don’t really look like much. Joonmyun-Baekhyun remembers his name!-tends to look concentrated to the point of constipation, all furrowed eyebrows and set jaws, while Yixing always looks completely zen, holding Baekhyun’s hands and sometimes humming. Baekhyun always just feels very warm, like his body is buzzing, filling up with liquid fire that just edges on painful. It feels overwhelming sometimes, and he’s cried more than once, but it doesn’t hurt as much as everything else does, so he doesn’t complain.
He doesn’t cry this time. Joonmyun and Yixing do their thing, and Baekhyun’s chest burns in a very different way than it usually does. He struggles to breathe, but he forces himself to inhale, hold it, exhale. It goes on for a few minutes, building up very very slowly, to the point that Baekhyun doesn’t think he can take it for another second. And then the burning and the fullness lessen, then slip away. He opens his eyes.
The paranormals look utterly wrung out. Joonmyun clutches the back of Yixing’s chair, swaying on his feet, and Yixing’s face is unhealthily pale. He smiles anyway, squeezes Baekhyun’s good hand, the one without his fingers splinted together. “How are you feeling?”
Baekhyun breathes in experimentally, and although it’s still painful, and the pressure is still there, he thinks there’s some improvement. The skin over his ribs feels less tight and itchy and inflamed, at the very least. “Bit better,” he mumbles.
“Good,” Yixing says, his smile growing even as his eyes flutter with exhaustion. “That’s really great, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun takes another slow, painstaking breath. “Will my brain ever…” There’s a long pause, and he struggles to find the right words, to finish his thought. “Heal? Will I r’member?”
“You’re very concerned with remembering things,” Yixing says, instead of answering.
“‘S all ‘m good for,” Baekhyun admits, wincing. “Not used to...forgetting.”
“Well that’s cryptic,” Joonmyun mutters.
“Your dad is always asking us about your memory, too,” Yixing sighs.
Baekhyun’s eyes snap open. He hadn’t even noticed them closing. “How’d you...know?”
“What?” Yixing blinks at him.
“That he’s...my dad.”
Yixing furrows his eyebrows at him. “The community leader? Isn’t it...just a fact?”
Baekhyun shakes his head slowly, even though it hurts to. “‘S a secr’t. Big...secr’t.”
“Why is the fact that you’re the leader’s son a secret?” Yixing just looks more confused than ever.
Baekhyun swallows thickly. He hadn’t realized until now how thirsty he is. “‘Cause I’m...import...import...nt.”
Yixing shakes his head, like he’s given up on understanding. Baekhyun wonders if he’s even using the right words. “He looks at you like a father,” he says eventually. “I didn’t know he was trying to hide it.”
Baekhyun hums slightly, bitterly amused. “Just wants me alive ‘cause I’m...import’nt.”
Yixing makes a tsking sound. “He was worried about you. Is worried about you.”
Baekhyun manages a small scoff, then regrets it. “Sure. ‘Cause I’m-”
“Important, yeah. So you said,” says Joonmyun, sounding unimpressed. “Just leave him, Xing, he’s not gonna listen to you.”
Yixing sighs. Baekhyun closes his eyes again.
“Let’s go,” Joonmyun says. “You need to rest.”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll stay with him a while longer.”
“Xing, come on. It’s not like he’s gonna be grateful for your company.”
Baekhyun would agree, but he honestly just feels so apathetic about everything right now. He stays silent, pretends to be sleeping.
“It’s fine, Joon. He shouldn’t be alone that much.”
“Whatever,” Joonmyun mutters, and Baekhyun hears him sit down across the room.
“Liyin gave me this book earlier,” Yixing says softly, obviously directed at Baekhyun. “Mind if I read it out loud to you?”
Baekhyun mumbles vaguely, not really saying anything at all. Lets Yixing interpret it however he wants.
“All of the books in our bunker were in such bad condition by the time we resurfaced,” Yixing says, and his voice is so warm. Baekhyun won’t admit it aloud, but he could listen to it for a long, long time. “This one’s still so nice. It’s called ‘Long Live the Night.’ Have you read it?”
Baekhyun shakes his head minutely.
“Good. We can read it together.”
Baekhyun dozes off in the middle of chapter two, wondering if he’ll even remember any of this when he wakes up.
*****
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A/N: So now that we're two weeks in, tell me! Is 3 weekly updates good? Too many? Not enough? (Even if it's not enough, I won't post more often lmao.) Would you rather I went back to twice weekly? Let me know~~ Also, shoutout to the 6-7 people who consistently comment on every chapter. I LOVE YALL.
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